Plaintiff Mildred Green filed a lawsuit against defendants Ricardo Arboleda Guapacha and Alba Vidal due to an automobile accident. Green and Arboleda Guapacha were both stopped at a red light before the accident occurred. Green was in the middle lane and Arboleda Guapacha was in the left lane. The issue in Green v. Arboleda Guapacha, 2024 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 2899 (App. Div. Nov. 21, 2024), was whether Arboleda Guapacha owed any duty of care to Green who made a left-hand turn from the middle lane of the roadway.
The facts were undisputed that Arboleda Guapacha’s vehicle was in the left lane of traffic and Green’s vehicle was in the middle lane of the roadway before Green began to turn left. The only lane of traffic that was authorized to turn left at that intersection was the lane that Arboleda Guapacha was traveling in. Green was in the middle lane which was marked as a “straight lane” only.
The accident occurred when the left-hand turn signal controlling Arboleda Guapacha’s lane of travel turned green. He began to make the left-hand turn. Green, disregarding the middle lane’s red light, along with the lane markings, also began to turn left. Plaintiff Green claimed that she and other drivers have made left-hand turns onto Route 280 from the middle lane due to traffic in this intersection, despite the traffic markings that only allowed her to proceed straight.
Plaintiff Green told the police that she was in the middle lane, making the left-hand turn onto Route 280, when Arboleda Guapacha’s vehicle sped up and hit her vehicle. She suffered damage to her driver’s side rear fender and claims that she was injured as a result. After discovery concluded, defendants filed for a summary judgment, which the trial court granted. The trial court judge found that there was no evidence that Arboleda Guapacha failed to operate his vehicle in accordance with prevailing law.
This appeal ensued. The Appellate Division noted that the threshold question was whether Arboleda Guapacha owed a duty of care to Green. The Court noted that for it to impose a duty of care, “there must be a foreseeable risk of harm.”
Here, the parties did not dispute that Green’s lane was controlled by a red light and that due to the designation of the roadway, only a straight path of travel was permitted from that lane. Instead of obeying the traffic command, plaintiff turned left from the middle lane. She elected to disregard the red light and the middle lane markings and drive her vehicle into the lane of travel that she should not have occupied.
The Appellate Division found that while both drivers had a duty to make proper observations, Green’s presence in the roadway next to Arboleda Guapacha’s lane of travel at the time of impact was not “reasonably foreseeable.” Hence, the Appellate Division concluded that Arboleda Guapacha owed no duty to Green.
The Appellate Division also noted that the trial court judge properly rejected Green’s argument that she and other drivers had made a left-hand turn onto Route 280 from the middle lane on prior occasions despite the traffic control device and in contravention of the roadway markings, requiring a vehicle in the middle lane of travel to proceed straight. The Court noted that only vehicles in the left most lane were permitted to turn left at that intersection. It found that even if other drivers had “previously disregarded traffic laws at this intersection, such conduct by others does not exempt Green from the consequences of proceeding in contravention of designated traffic markings.”
It also rejected the argument that Arboleda Guapacha could be liable for making an improper wide left turn or speeding up as he made the turn. It noted that there was no evidence that Green’s vehicle would have been struck had she not been making a prohibited left-hand turn from the middle lane.
Hence, the Appellate Division agreed with the trial court’s ruling and upheld the summary judgment dismissal as to the defendants.
